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GBPRe 


Barton.  William 

The  education  of  Abraham  Lincoln 


LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


THE  EDUCATION 


OF 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


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V. 


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The  Education  of  Abraham  Lincoln 

An  Address 

Delivered  before  the  Faculty  and  Students  of 

Illinois  College 
Jacksonville,  Illinois,  February  7,  1923 

By 
William  E.  Barton,  D.  D.,  LL.  D. 

Author  of  "The  Soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln" 
"The  Paternity  of  Abraham  Lincoln",  etc. 


COURIER  PRESS 
Jacksonville,  Illinois 


The  letter  of  David  Rutledge  to  his  father 
and  his  sister  Ann,  which  was  for  some  months 
in  my  possession,  is  now  the  property  of  Mr. 
Henry  B.  Rankin  of  Springfield.  It  is  repro- 
duced in  fae-simile  by  his  courtesy.  It's  use 
on  the  platform  in  this  lecture  and  its  pub- 
lication in  this  brochure  constitute  its  first 
presentation  to  the  public.  It  is  Mr.  Rankin's 
purpose  that  ultimately  it  shall  be  placed  in  a 
fire-proof  museum  at  New  Salem. 

W.  E.  B. 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


It  is  an  honor,  as  it  is  also  a  pleasure,  to  speak  to  you  today  on 
The  Education  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Appropriate  as  that  theme 
would  be  as  the  title  of  an  address  before  the  faculty  and  student  body 
of  any  educational  institution  in  America,  there  are  valid  reasons  why 
the  subject  should  have  a  special  interest  here.  That  Abraham  Lin- 
coln sustained  a  peculiarly  close  relation  to  this  institution  is  known, 
of  course,  to  all  of  you;  and  it  is  my  purpose  today  to  show  that  that 
relation  was  closer  than  is  generally  known,  closer,  perhaps,  than  any 
of  you  realize. 

But  even  if  I  were  able  to  add  nothing  to  your  present  knowledge 
of  Lincoln,  I  should  not  think  it  superfluous  to  speak  to  you  about 
him.  We  can  never  afford  to  permit  an  ennobling  event  or  relation- 
ship to  become  commonplace.  It  is  important  that  we  hold  in  mem- 
ory and  appreciation  whatever  makes  life  more  worthy.  Wordsworth 
taught  us  a  needed  lesson  concerning  nature's  most  beautiful  phe- 
nomenon : 

"My  heart  leaps  up  when  I  behold 
A  rainbow  in  the  sky : 

So  was  it  when  my  life  began; 

So  is  it  now  I  am  a  man; 

So  be  it  when  I  shall  grow  old — 
Or  let  me  die." 

When  the  time  comes  that  we  can  behold  a  rainbow  and  not  be 
thrilled  by  it,  then  in  the  midst  of  life  we  are  in  death.  Wherever  we 
find  ourselves  able  to  live  where  great  men  have  trodden  and  not  feel 
a  sense  of  exhileration,  then,  whether  we  be  young  or  old,  we  have 
permitted  something  very  precious  to  die  out  within  us.  Abraham 
Lincoln's  relation  to  Jacksonville  and  to  Illinois  College  was  very 
close  and  interesting.  I  earnestly  hope  that  President  Eammelkamp 
will  write  out  for  publication  the  story  of  that  relationship.  I  am  not 
attempting  today  to  cover  that  ground.  But  I  carry  no  owls  to  Athens 
when  I  speak  in  this  place,  where  the  story  is  better  known  than  in 
most  places,  of  The  Education  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

3 


When  Abraham  Lincoln  went  to  Congress  in  1847,  he  found  him- 
self confronted  with  a  blank  which  he  was  expected  to  fill  out,  giving 
an  outline  of  his  life.  Opposite  the  word  "Education"  he  wrote, 
"Defective."  All  his  life  he  was  painfully  conscious  of  the  defective- 
ness of  his  education.  If  by  education  we  are  to  understand  the  com- 
pletion of  any  course  of  study  in  school  or  in  preparation  for  entrance 
upon  the  work  of  a  profession,  then  Lincoln's  education  was  indeed 
defective.  But  the  world,  as  it  studies  the  life  of  Lincoln,  tends  more 
and  more  to  think  of  him  as  a  man  with  a  fairly  good  education,  an 
education  in  some  respects  almost  ideal  for  the  task  which  he  assumed. 

Let  us  review,  rapidly,  the  grades  of  his  education,  and  his  several 
promotions  as  a  scholar. 

First,  there  were  two  brief  periods  of  study  in  Kentucky  "blab- 
schools"  where  the  pupils  studied  aloud  to  assure  the  teacher  that  they 
were  not  wasting  their  time.  His  two  Kentucky  teachers  were  Zach- 
ariah  Einey  and  Caleb  Hazel.  Probably  his  only  text-book  in  that 
State  was  a  speller,  and  the  first  is  said  to  have  been  Dillworth's;  but 
later  he  used  the  Webster  "Blueback."  The  method  of  instruction  in 
that  day  was  that  the  pupil  should  spell  through  the  book  several 
times  before  he  learned  to  read.  His  first  reading  lessons  were  the 
short  sentences  given  as  exercises  under  each  group  of  words  in  the 
spelling  book.  A  student  had  to  be  proficient  in  spelling  all  the  sep- 
arate words  in  the  book  before  he  was  allowed  to  put  even  the  simplest 
words  together.  The  single  letter  was  supposed  to  be  the  unit  of 
instruction,  and  the  next  unit  was  the  word.  As  the  alphabet  was 
first  learned  from  A  to  Z  before  any  words  were  constructed,  so  the 
spelling  of  all  the  words  in  the  book  was  learned  before  any  sentences 
were  formed.  Lincoln  learned  to  spell  "incomprehensibility"  in  the 
list  of  "words  of  eight  syllables  accented  upon  the  sixth"  before  he 
learned  to  read  "Is  he  to  go  in?"  and  other  sentences  in  words  of  two 
letters  each;  and  it  was  a  milestone  in  his  education  when  his  new 
learning  conveyed  to  him  the  information  that  "Ann  can  spin  flax." 
Judged  by  present  day  methods,  this  was  not  the  best  way  to  begin  an 
education;  but  faulty  as  it  was  it  had  certain  merits.  Lincoln  became 
a  good  speller.  Usually  he  spelled  down  the  school.  Lincoln's  mis- 
spelled words  in  after  life  were  infrequent.  He  was  a  much  better 
speller  than  Washington.  For  that  matter,  it  is  only  within  the  last 
century  that  education  has  determined  to  rob  orthography  of  all 
originality. 

4 


In  Indiana,  Lincoln  attended  school  for  three  brief  periods,  his 
teachers  being  Azel  W.  Dorsey,  Andrew  Crawford  and  a  man  named 
Swaney.  There  he  studied  the  English  Reader,  and  he  made  progress 
with  Pike's  Arithmetic  as  far  as  the  Eule  of  Three.  There  was  use  of 
the  English  Bible  as  a  text-book  for  reading. 

In  his  home,  Lincoln  read  the  Bible,  Weems'  Life  of  Washington, 
Robinson  Crusoe,  Pilgrim's  Progress,  Aesop's  Fables,  and  an  unidenti- 
fied History  of  the  United  States.  Later  he  read  the  Arabian  Nights, 
Weems'  Life  of  Franklin,  and  the  Statutes  of  Indiana.  It  was  an 
excellent  library.  It  would  be  well  for  almost  any  American  boy  to 
have  these  books  and  no  others  for  a  full  year,  substituting  a  better 
biography  of  Washington  for  that  of  Weems,  and  supplying  a  better 
and  more  complete  History  of  the  United  States. 

In  New  Salem,  he  studied  Kirkham's  Grammar,  and  he  used 
thereafter  remarkably  good  grammatical  forms,  though  he  often  split 
his  infinitives  and  made  some  minor  errors  in  diction.  There  he  stu- 
died surveying  and  law.  There  he  began  to  read  poetry,  and  there  he 
read  books  on  religion,  some  of  them  adverse  to  religion  as  there  and 
then  understood. 

By  this  time  he  was  twenty-eight  years  of  age,  and  had  been 
admitted  to  the  bar.  He  removed  from  New  Salem  to  Springfield  in 
1835,  and  there  he  began  the  practice  of  his  profession. 

We  are  now  to  think  of  his  formal  schooling  as  complete.  When 
he  said  good-bye  to  Mentor  Graham,  who  taught  him  grammar,  and  to 
the  friends  who  helped  him  to  a  knowledge  of  surveying,  he  may  be 
understood  to  have  graduated. 

He  knew  that  many  men  in  his  profession  in  Illinois  had  more  of 
formal  education  than  he  possessed.  He  knew  that  to  a  certain  extent 
he  was  handicapped  for  lack  of  more  learning.  But  he  decided  not  to 
go  to  school  any  more. 

Some  years  ago  William  Allen  White  wrote  a  book,  entitled  "The 
Court  of  Boyville."  Therein  he  set  forth  that  if  one  particular  man 
living  in  Leavenworth,  Kansas,  had,  on  a  certain  night  in  1865,  eaten 
only  two  pieces  of  pumpkin  pie  for  supper,  a  President  of  the  United 
States  would  have  been  removed  from  his  high  office.  But  the  pie 
was  unusually  good,  and  he  ate  three  pieces,  and  in  consequence  did 
not  attend  a  Republican  caucus  in  his  ward  that  night.  For  the  lack  of 
his  vote,  there  was  a  tie,  and  the  chairman  broke  the  tie  by  a  vote  for 
a  set  of  delegates  to  the  approaching  municipal  or  county  convention 

5 


other  than  the  set  for  which  the  man  with  colic  would  have  voted  if  he 
had  been  present  and  able  to  keep  his  mind  upon  the  business  of  the 
evening.  In  consequence,  a  different  set  of  delegates  went  from 
Leavenworth  to  the  convention  of  the  legislative  district,  and  a  man 
was  elected  from  that  district  to  the  legislature  other  than  the  man 
who  would  have  been  chosen  if  the  pie  had  not  been  so  good.  By  the 
margin  of  that  one  vote,  a  different  man  was  elected  to  the  Senate  of 
the  United  States  than  would  otherwise  have  been  chosen.  From 
that  point  on,  everyone  knows  the  story.  Andrew  Johnson  had  been 
impeached  by  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  it  was  known  how 
every  Senator  would  vote,  except  Senator  Eoss,  the  newly  elected 
Senator  from  Kansas.  What  he  did  caused  him  to  be  ostracised,  and 
he  lived  and  died  a  political  and  almost  a  social  outcast;  though  he 
appears  to  have  done  what  he  believed  his  duty,  and  what  by  this 
time  most  of  us  are  glad  he  did. 

I  once  asked  Mr.  White  whether  this  was  truth,  or  only  a  good 
newspaper  story,  and  he  told  me  that  he  obtained  the  information  and 
heard  the  working  out  of  this  story  by  a  reliable  man,  and  he  believed 
it  to  be  correct. 

I  hope  that  not  many  people  have  bought  and  read,  "The  Ifs  of 
History,"  by  Joseph  Edgar  Chamberlain,  formerly  of  the  Boston 
Transcript,  because  if  more  people  had  read  it,  I  should  have  less 
pleasure  in  quoting  it.  He  tells  us,  for  instance,  that  if  the  voters  of 
Athens  had  not  grown  weary  of  hearing  Aristides  called  "The  Just", 
in  consequence  of  which  weariness  they  banished  him.  and  if  a  most 
reprehensible  political  trick  had  not  resulted  in  the  election  of  The- 
mistocles  as  his  successor,  the  Christian  world,  as  it  now  is,  might 
never  have  heard  of  Christ,  and  we  all  should  probably  have  been  dis- 
ciples of  Zoroaster.  And  he  tells  many  other  startling  things,  out  of 
which  I  could  make  an  interesting  address,  especially  if  I  were  not 
compelled  to  use  quotation  marks. 

I  have  in  mind  another  inquiry.  If  Ann  Rutledge  had  lived,  and 
had  married  Abraham  Lincoln,  what  would  have  happened  to  Booker 
T.  Washington  and  to  the  world? 

I  am  not  unaware  that  William  H.  Herndon  has  answered  this 
question  by  saying  that  Lincoln,  being  an  indolent  and  home-loving 
man,  would  under  those  conditions  have  settled  down  comfortably  in 
Springfield,  and  lost  his  ambition  or  the  energy  essential  to  putting  it- 
into  effect.     Herndon's  conclusion,  as  everyone  knows,  was  that  Mrs. 

6 


Lincoln's  unmerciful  nagging  drove  Lincoln  away  from  home  into 
politics,  and  made  him  President.  I  have  much  more  sympathy  and 
charity  for  that  much  abused  woman  than  Herndon  had.  Sometime 
I  expect  to  tell  what  I  believe  about  Mary  Todd  Lincoln,  but  not  now. 
Nor  am  I  approaching  the  inquiry  from  Herndon's  point  of  view.  I 
draw  no  present  contrast  between  that  fine  girl,  Ann  Eutledge,  and 
that  proud  and  ambitious,  and  I  think  faithful,  woman,  Mary  Todd 
Lincoln,  but  I  raise  the  question  because  it  suggests  a  rather  unusual 
point  of  inquiry.  What  would  have  happened  if  Ann  Rutledge  had 
lived? 

In  the  first  place,  I  do  not  think  that  she  and  Abraham  Lincoln 
would  have  married  immediately,  nor  do  I  think  the  reason  would 
have  been  any  lingering  fondness  upon  her  part  for  any  other  man. 
The  notion  that  her  heart  was  torn  between  her  new  love  for  Lincoln 
and  an  earlier  and  recurrent  affection  for  John  McNamar,  I  do  not 
credit.  I  shall  some  day  tell  who  was  the  source  of  that  story,  and 
why  I  think  it  untrue  and  unworthy.  I  think  that  Lincoln  and  Ann 
Eutledge  sincerely  cared  for  each  other,  and  that  no  shadow  of  a  for- 
mer love  was  cast  between  them  by  any  haunting  memories  of  hers. 
The  reason  why  Lincoln  and  Ann  Rutledge  would  not  have  married 
immediately  was  that  Ann  felt  unfitted  to  be  the  wife  of  as  great  a 
man  as  she  believed  Lincoln  was  destined  to  be,  and  wished  to  go  to 
school  and  have  him  go  to  school.  The  last  sister  of  Ann  Rutledge 
lived  until  last  summer.  Sarah  Rutledge  Saunders  died  in  Lompoc, 
California,  May  1,  1922.  For  some  years  before  her  death  I  was  in 
correspondence  with  her,  and,  in  the  summer  of  1921,  I  went  to  Cali- 
fornia and  visited  her  and  made  a  photograph  of  her.  She  was  at  that 
time  in  bed  with  a  broken  hip,  but  was  able  to  be  lifted,  and  I  lifted 
her  into  a  wheeled  chair,  and  rolled  her  out  into  the  sunshine  and 
made  a  picture  of  her,  the  last  that  was  taken,  as  I  suppose,  for  from 
that  bed  she  did  not  arise  thereafter,  except  for  a  few  moments  at  a 
time  to  rest,  and  this  at  infrequent  and  lengthening  intervals. 

With  her,  and  with  a  considerable  number  of  nieces  and  nephews 
and  her  one  surviving  son,  I  discussed  all  phases  of  the  question  con- 
cerning Lincoln  and  Ann  Rutledge.  What  I  am  now  giving  relates  to 
this  matter  of  the  desire  of  Ann  that  she  should  go  to  school,  and  that 
iibraham  also  should  secure  a  better  education  to  fit  him  for  the  large 
work  which  even  then  he  believed  he  had  before  him. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  Ann  Rutledge  believed  that  Lincoln  was 

7 


to  accomplish  great  things.  Mary  Todd  believed  that.  Indeed,  Mary 
Todd  firmly  believed  that  he  would  some  day  be  President.  Ann 
Rutledge  had  no  such  thought  as  that;  but  her  family  had  in  it  a 
signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  a  Governor,  and  some 
judges,  and  other  officials.  Lincoln  had  been  a  candidate  for  the  Leg- 
islature, and  on  his  second  attempt  in  1834  had  been  successful,  and 
she  had  heard  him  and  his  friends  talk  in  the  Rutledge  Tavern  about 
his  political  future.  Of  course  she  believed  in  him,  and  wanted  the 
best  for  him  that  could  be  secured.  And  she  wanted  to  be  fitted  to  be 
the  wife  of  such  a  great  man  as  she  thought  he  was  sure  to  be. 

This  tradition  is  clear  in  the  Rutledge  family,  and  I  had  it  from 
"Aunt  Sally  Saunders/'  her  sister,  and  from  others  of  the  Rutledge 
connection. 

Where  did  she  plan  that  she  should  go  to  school,  and  what  were 
Lincoln's  plans  if  she  had  lived? 

Their  plan  was  that  he  should  go  to  Illinois  College  at  Jackson- 
ville, and  that  she  should  attend  the  Female  Academy  at  Jacksonville. 

David  Rutledge,  Ann's  brother,  was  a  student  at  Illinois  College 
at  the  time  of  the  courtship  of  Lincoln  and  Ann.  At  least  two  other 
young  men  from  New  Salem  were  students  there.  They  were  friends 
of  Lincoln.  Lincoln  himself  procured  a  book  of  Greek  exercises,  and 
seems  to  have  considered  whether  he  might  secure  a  classical  educa- 
tion. That  book  I  have  seen  and  examined.  It  indicates  that  Lin- 
coln had  more  or  less  definitely  in  mind  the  possibility  of  his  going  to 
college.  It  was  more  than  a  possibility.  Mrs.  Eleanor  Atkinson,  in 
an  excellent  magazine  article,  has  reminded  us  that  there  were  three 
colleges  then  in  Illinois,  and  that  Lincoln  knew  of  them  all  and  had 
opportunity  of  attending  any  one  of  them.  If  he  had  attended  any, 
it  would  certainly  have  been  Illinois  College,  at  Jacksonville. 

I  learned  from  "Aunt  Sally"  that  she  had  one  letter  addressed  to 
Ann,  the  only  letter  the  family  had  that  she  received  from  anyone,  and 
perhaps  the  only  one  that  was  addressed  to  her  by  any  member  of  her 
own  household.  This  letter  she  loaned  to  me,  with  the  privilege  of 
use.  To  my  great  delight,  I  found  it  had  an  important  bearing  upon 
the  question  of  Ann's  plans  for  an  education.  The  letter  was  written 
to  her  from  Jacksonville,  where  her  brother  David  was  in  college,  and 
it  dealt  directly  with  her  own  purpose  to  go  there  the  next  autumn, 
and  he  encouraged  the  plan.  It  was  really  three  letters  in  one,  all  on 
the  two  sides  of  one  sheet,  with  room  still  saved  for  the  address.     The 

8 


main  letter  was  to  David's  father,  James  Eutledge.  The  first  post- 
script was  to  Ann.  The  second  postscript  was  to  James  Kittridge, 
concerning  the  district  school  at  Sand  Ridge,  where  the  Rutledges  had 
their  farm.  The  letters  are  in  the  stiff  and  formal  language  of  the 
time.  Postage  cost  a  good  deal,  and  David  had  opportunity  to  save 
postage  by  sending  this  letter  by  a  schoolmate.  The  letter  to  his 
father  read  thus : 

"College  Hill,  July  27,  1835. 
"Dear  Father  :— 

"The  passing  of  Mr.  Blood  from  this  place  to  that  affords  me  an 
opportunity  of  writing  you  a  few  lines.  I  have  thus  far  enjoyed  good 
health,  and  the  students  generally  are  well.  I  have  not  collected  any- 
things  of  Brooks,  except  that  I  agreed  to  take  his  paper  as  I  thought 
that  that  would  be  better  than  nothing  at  all,  though  he  says  he  could 
pay  the  order  in  about  two  months.  L.  M.  Greene  is  up  at  home  at 
this  time  trying  to  get  a  school,  and  I  had  concluded  to  quit  this  place 
and  goe  to  him  untill  the  commencement  of  the  next  term,  but  I  could 
not  get  off  without  paying  for  the  whole  term,  therefore  I  concluded 
to  stay  here. 

"If  Mr.  Blood  calls  on  you  to  stay  all  night,  please  to  entertain 
him  free  of  cost,  as  he  is  one  of  my  fellow  students  and  I  believe  him 
to  be  a  good  religious  young  man.  I  add  nomore,  but  remain  yours 
with  respect  untill  death. 

"D.  H.  Eutledge. 
"To  James  Rutledge." 

You  will  not  fail  to  note  the  value  of  a  refusal  by  a  college  treas- 
urer to  refund  to  a  departing  student  a  portion  of  his  term  bills  as  an 
element  of  value  in  holding  a  stable  student  body.  David  Rutledge 
had  determined  to  go  home,  but  when  the  college  treasurer  refused 
him  a  rebate,  he  resolved  to  stay  on,  and  get  his  money's  worth  in 
education.  That  is  something  of  which  college  treasurers  may  prop- 
erly take  note. 

It  will  be  noted  also  that  a  year's  subscription  to  a  newspaper, 
though  not  greatly  prized,  was  considered  better  than  nothing,  and 
that  an  editor's  promise  to  pay  in  two  months  was  not  rated  highly. 

The  Greene  brothers,  to  one  of  whom  this  letter  makes  reference, 
were  friends  of  David  Rutledge,  as  they  were  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  and 
their  home-coming  for  vacation  teaching  must  have  been  a  matter  of 
general  comment. 

The  second  postscript  had  to  do  with  school  teaching.  McGrady 
Rutledge,  a  nephew  of  James  and  cousin  of  David,  had  been  asked  to 

9 


secure  the  teaching  of  the  Sand  Ridge  school  for  another  student 
named  Porter.  The  Sand  Ridge  school  was  near  the  Rutledge  farm, 
though  several  miles  from  New  Salem.  To  Sand  Ridge  the  Rutledge 
family  retired  after  the  Tavern  failed,  and  there  Ann  and  her  father 
died.  Ann  did  not  die  in  New  Salem,  as  most  writers  suppose,  but 
several  miles  from  there.  We  may  quote,  out  of  its  order,  the  second 
postscript,  which  is  to  James  Kittridge : 

"P.  S. — I  wish  you  to  send  McGrada's  letter  to  him  immediately 
as  it  requests  him  to  attend  to  the  school  on  Sand  Ridge  for  Mr.  Porter 
and  also  I  want  intelligence  to  come  the  next  mail  concerning  it.  I 
add  nomore. 

"D.  H.  Rutledge. 
"James  Kittridge." 

David  spelled  "nomore"  as  a  single  word,  and  that  was  the  way  it 
was  pronounced  in  formal  discourse,  a  kind  of  "Amen."  It  was  a 
word  sometimes  uttered  with  great  solemnity  in  sermons,  a  word  of 
two  syllables,  accented  on  the  second. 

The  first  postscript  is  the  part  of  the  letter  of  the  greatest  inter- 
est.    It  reads : 

"To  Anna  Rutledge : 

"Valued  Sister.  So  far  as  I  can  understand  Miss  Graves  will 
teach  another  school  in  the  Diamond  Grove.  I  am  glad  to  hear  that 
you  have  a  notion  of  comeing  to  school,  and  I  earnestly  recommend  to 
you  that  you  would  spare  no  time  from  improving  your  education  and 
mind.  Remember  that  Time  is  worth  more  than  all  gold  therefore 
throw  away  none  of  your  golden  moments.     I  add  nomore,  but  &c. 

"D.  H.  Rutledge. 
"Anna  Rutledge." 

This  letter  is  in  full  accord  with  the  Rutledge  tradition.  Ann 
Rutledge  and  Lincoln  were  engaged  to  be  married,  and  she  desired  to 
wait  at  least  a  year  to  attend  The  Jacksonville  Female  Academy.  This, 
the  only  Girls'  Seminary  in  Jacksonville  in  1835,  was  merged  with 
Illinois  College  in  1903.  Ann  had  written  or  sent  to  her  brother  an 
inquiry  concerning  the  school,  and  of  her  hope  to  be  a  student  there 
in  the  fall  of  1835.  Lincoln,  as  he  and  she  dreamed  over  the  matter 
together,  was  to  have  entered  Illinois  College,  at  least  for  a  year. 

Ann  Rutledge  must  have  been  sick  when  her  brother  wrote  this 
letter.  It  was  dated  July  27,  1835,  and  she  died  August  25,  1835, 
after  a  sickness  of  about  six  weeks.  Lincoln  was  not  living  in  the 
house  in  which  she  died.     He  went  over,  riding  from  New  Salem  to 

10 


Sand  Ridge,  and  visited  her  once  during  her  illness.  What  they  said 
to  each  other  no  one  knows. 

No  one  remembers  trie  funeral  of  Ann  Rutledge.  "Aunt  Sally" 
had  rather  a  clear  impression  that  her  cousin,  Rev.  John  Cameron, 
conducted  the  service.  He  was  a  Cumberland  Presbyterian,  as  were 
the  family  of  the  Rutledges.  The  father  of  that  sect,  Rev.  James 
McGrady,  was  a  personal  friend  of  the  family,  and  James  Rutledge 
was  converted  under  his  ministry. 

What  would  have  happened  if  Ann  Rutledge  had  lived,  and  she 
had  gone  to  the  Jacksonville  Female  Academy  in  the  autumn  of  1835, 
and  Abraham  Lincoln  at  the  same  time  had  entered  Illinois  College? 

Could  Lincoln  have  gone  to  college?  Certainly  he  could.  Other 
young  men  as  little  prepared  in  education  and  with  as  little  money  did 
go  to  Illinois  College.  Newton  Bateman,  whom  Lincoln  was  to  know 
well  as  State  Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction  in  Illinois,  starved 
his  way  through  Illinois  College,  and  Richard  Yates,  the  War  Gov- 
ernor, went  there,  and  Richard  Oglesby  got  through  two  years  at 
Mount  Morris.  These  were  Lincoln's  contemporaries,  and  they  were, 
some  of  them,  as  poor  as  he.  Lincoln  could  have  gone  to  college,  and 
if  Ann  Rutledge  had  lived,  he  probably  would  have  gone. 

I  do  not  think  that  Ann  Rutledge  planned  to  go  to  Jacksonville 
unless  Lincoln  also  went.  She  had  had  one  love  affair  that  ended 
unhappily,  and  she  was  not  likely  to  go  away  deliberately  and  leave 
her  lover  for  a  year.  The  Rutledge  tradition  appears  to  me  to  have 
every  appearance  of  probabaility,  that  the  plan  of  Ann  to  attend  the 
Female  Academy  was  thought  out  jointly  by  Abraham  and  Ann,  and 
had  joined  to  it  his  plan  for  at  least  a  year  of  study  at  Illinois  College. 
Every  student  of  Illinois  College  has  a  right  to  think  with  greater 
pride  of  his  Alma  Mater  because  it  was,  in  imagination  and  hope,  the 
college  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Lincoln  might  have  spent  here  the  seven  years  which  he  spent  at 
New  Salem,  and  graduated  with  a  smaller  debt  than  he  had  when  that 
little  city  "winked  out."  I  cannot  help  wondering  whether  this  Col- 
lege or  any  college  would  have  done  more  for  him  than  New  Salem  did. 

On  August  6,  1834,  Lincoln  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Illinois 
Legislature.  At  Vandalia  he  met  the  heads  of  the  three  Illinois  col- 
leges as  they  came  to  the  capital  in  the  interests  of  their  respective 
schools.  Shurtleff  College  was  at  Upper  Alton,  and  McKendree  at 
Lebanon.     Lincoln  knew  of  both  of  them.     But  he  knew  more  still 

11 


LIBRARY     - 

uNivERsmr  of  mmm 


about  Illinois  College,  which  had  been  operating  since  1830  at  Jack- 
sonville, only  twenty  miles  away  from  New  Salem.  Far  from  its 
having  been  unthinkable  for  Lincoln  to  go  to  college,  it  was  impos- 
sible for  him  not  to  think  of  it.  William  G.  Greene,  and  his  brother 
alluded  to  in  David  Rutledge's  letter,  and  David  himself,  were  con- 
stant reminders  that  a  young  man  eager  to  learn  could  go  to  Jackson- 
ville practically  without  money,  and  the  college  would  provide  work, 
and  admit  him  to  its  preparatory  department,  and  hold  out  before 
him  the  hope  of  a  real  diploma  and  a  degree.  Illinois  College  had  a 
faculty  of  four  Yale  alumni,  who  were  graduates  in  Divinity,  also. 
Three  of  them  were  men  of  distinction.  They  were  the  President, 
Edward  Beecher,  and  Professors  Jonathan  Baldwin  Turner  and 
Julian  M.  Sturtevant.  To  have  been  associated  with  these  men,  in 
classes  so  small  that  every  student  was  an  intimate  friend  of  the 
teacher,  would  of  itself  have  been  a  liberal  education.  Edward 
Beecher  was  a  brother  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  and  an  author  of  note, 
as  well  as  an  inspiring  teacher. 

One  thing  a  year  or  more  would  have  done  for  Abraham  Lincoln, 
it  would  have  given  him  a  more  reasonable  and  progressive  theology 
than  he  had  ever  heard  preached.  Illinois  College  was  founded  under 
the  Plan  of  Union  of  the  Congregationalists  and  Presbyterians.  These 
Presbyterians  were  of  the  New  School,  and  very  different  from  those 
whose  preaching  Lincoln  had  heard.  Under  the  teaching  of  such 
men  as  these,  Lincoln  would  have  found  some  of  his  religious  difficul- 
ties materially  helped.  Some  of  his  theological  opinions  would  have 
been  modified.  He  would  have  known  the  current  thought  in  New 
England  theology,  a  system  which,  whatever  its  faults,  believed  in 
fearless  thinking  and  in  intellectual  and  spiritual  progress. 

It  requires  no  very  vivid  stretch  of  the  imagination  to  think  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  as  emerging  from  Illinois  College  a  Congregational 
minister,  or  possibly  a  New  School  Presbyterian.  The  former  would 
have  been  rather  the  more  likely,  because  his  early  training  as  a  Bap- 
tist would  have  made  him  familiar  with  the  Congregational  form  of 
Church  government. 

Of  course  he  would  have  come  out  an  ardent  abolitionist,  as  were 
the  men  who  would  have  been  his  teachers  and  his  fellow  students, 
including  his  subsequent  law-partner,  William  H.  Herndon.  Lincoln 
would  not  have  waited  so  long  nor  gone  through  so  patient  an  evolu- 
tion in  the  working  out  of  his  theories  of  human  freedom. 

12 


We  can  imagine  him  as  holding  joint  debates,  not  with  Stephen 
A.  Douglas,  on  politics,  but  on  theology,  with  Peter  Cartwright  and 
other  Methodists  on  the  one  hand,  and  with  Old  School  Baptists  and 
old  line  Calvinists  of  the  Southern  Presbyterian  type  on  the  other. 

Maybe  he  would  have  entered  politics  by  the  way  of  the  ministry, 
as  Peter  Cartwright  did,  and  as  Senator  Edwin  D.  Baker  did,  and  as 
he  would  have  found  opportunity  to  do. 

Perhaps  he  would  have  stuck  to  the  law,  and  let  others  preach  the 
gospel,  and  would  have  gone  on  with  his  legal  studies  established  on  a 
firmer  base  of  cultural  learning.  Would  he  have  been  a  better  edu- 
cated man  if  he  had  gone  to  college?  Would  he  have  served  God  and 
his  country  better  than  he  did?  Or  was  the  education  which  he  had 
better  than  any  college  could  have  given  him?  What  would  have 
happened  to  Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  country  if  Ann  Eutledge  had 
lived  ? 

The  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  graduates  of  the  schools  of  their  time, 
inquired  wonderingly  concerning  Jesus,  "How  knoweth  this  man  let- 
ters, having  never  learned?"  By  letters,  of  course,  they  meant  litera- 
ture. They  wondered  that  He,  whose  educational  advantages  had 
been  only  those  of  the  ordinary  Jewish  peasant  lad  who  had  attended 
the  school  of  the  local  synagogue,  possessed,  as  they  discovered  Him 
to  possess,  the  essentials  of  a  liberal  education.  Most  of  us  have  had 
occasion  now  and  then  to  express  surprise  at  the  culture  and  wisdom 
of  some  man  or  woman  of  limited  educational  opportunities.  1  have 
heard  men  who  could  scarcely  read  who  were  evidently  men  of  mental 
discipline.  I  have  heard  men  whose  ordinary  speech  was  ungram- 
matical  who  rose  to  something  like  nobility  of  utterance  in  prayer. 

In  most  cases  I  have  known  the  secret,  or  at  least  an  important 
part  of  the  secret  of  this  culture  adapted  to  circumstance,  in  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  Bible.  Certainly  this  was  true  of  Jesus,  and  it  was  true  of 
Lincoln.  Lincoln  used  the  Bible  as  a  text-book  in  the  common 
schools  of  Indiana.  He  read  it  in  his  home.  He  became  familiar 
with  its  content  so  that  he  was  quick  to  notice  an  unfamiliar  passage* 
and  to  look  it  up  and  discover  "whether  it  was  so  in  his  Bible." 

Lincoln's  concise,  exact,  forceful  style  was  derived  from  profound 
study  of  the  Scriptures.     He  entered  upon  his  series  of  debates  with 

*  An  interesting  incident  in  this  connection  is  his  dispute  with  Hon.  H.  C. 
Deming  of  Connecticut,  concerning  the  Levites  appointed  to  guard  the  cause- 
way, in  I  Chronicles  26:17-18.  See  Deming's  Memorial  Address  on  Lincoln, 
pp.  41-42. 

13 


Stephen  A.  Douglas,  basing  his  position  on  the  words  of  Jesus,  "A 
house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand."  He  used  Biblical  phrases 
and  allusions  freely,  and  as  one  to  whom  the  content  of  the  Bible  was 
familiar.  His  last  and  noblest  a'ddress,  the  Second  Inaugural,  was 
profoundly  Biblical.  There  if  anywhere  Lincoln  uttered  the  deepest 
convictions  of  his  heart.  The  education  of  Lincoln  was  fundamentally 
Biblical.  To  any  student  who  would  know  the  secret  of  his  literary 
style,  I  commend  a  thoughtful  study  of  the  English  Bible. 

It  is  alleged  that  in  his  youth  Abraham  Lincoln  read  every  book 
he  could  get  his  hands  upon,  and  that  he  "borrowed  every  book  within 
fifty  miles."  We  must  allow  something  for  exaggeration.  But  in  his 
youth,  he  would  appear  to  have  been  a  diligent  reader.  He  got  bravely 
over  it.  As  Herndon  says,  "He  read  less  and  thought  more"  than  any 
other  man  in  public  life  in  that  day.  For  the  most  part,  we  read  too 
much;  and  almost  every  one  of  us  reads  too  much  trash.  The  time  we 
waste  in  useless  reading  is  worse  than  wasted.  We  weaken  our  mem- 
ory by  reading  so  much  that  we  do  not  care  to  remember. 

But  Abraham  Lincoln's  education  did  not  stop  with  his  school- 
ing. He  was  not  even  one  of  those  men  who  looking  back  are  able 
to  say  that  their  education  was  interrupted  by  their  schooling.  He 
learned  in  school  and  he  learned  after  he  left  school.  In  school  he 
had  no  desk,  but  sat  on  a  puncheon  bench,  whose  four  legs  were 
driven  through  auger-holes  and  not  sawed  off  where  they  projected 
above  the  surface  of  the  seat;  that  would  have  been  considered  a  need- 
less concession  to  the  flesh.  If  he  wanted  to  write,  he  put  his  bare 
feet  on  the  puncheon  bench  in  front  of  him,  and  made  a  desk  of  his 
knees.  His  teachers  knew  nothing  of  modern  methods,  and  the 
methods  they  knew  were  defective  enough,  but  he  learned.  "Lickin' 
and  l'arnin'  "  went  together  in  those  schools,  and  Lincoln  got  both  of 
these  in  school  and  afterward.  Nature's  method  of  teaching  is  a  word 
and  a  blow,  with  the  blow  first. 

We  have  some  knowledge  of  Lincoln's  post-graduate  studies. 

In  February,  1860,  Lincoln  went  to  New  York  and  delivered  his 
Cooper  Union  address.  He  continued  his  journey  into  New  England, 
and  spoke  at  New  Haven  and  elsewhere.  Rev.  J.  P.  Gulliver  talked 
with  him  after  his  address  in  Norwich,  Connecticut,  and  wrote  out  the 
interview  as  he  remembered  it.  This  was  widely  published  in  1865, 
soon  after  Lincoln's  death,  and  appears  in  Brockett's  Life  of  Lincoln, 
published  in  that  year,  as  follows : 

14 


"  'I  want  very  much  to  know,  Mr.  Lincoln,  how  you  got  this 
unusual  power  of  putting  things.  It  must  have  been  a  matter  of 
education.  No  man  has  it  by  nature  alone.  What  has  your  education 
been?' 


a  <n 


cWell,  as  to  education,  the  newspapers  are  correct — I  never 
went  to  school  more  than  twelve  months  in  my  life.  But,  as  you  say, 
this  must  be  a  product  of  culture  in  some  form.  I  have  been  putting 
the  question  you  asked  me  to  myself,  while  you  have  been  talking.  I 
can  say  this,  that  among  my  earliest  recollections,  I  remember  how, 
when  a  mere  child,  I  used  to  get  irritated  when  anybody  talked  to  me 
in  a  way  I  could  not  understand.  I  don't  think  I  ever  got  angry  at 
anything  else  in  my  life.  But  that  always  disturbed  my  temper,  and 
has  ever  since.  I  can  remember  going  to  my  little  bedroom,  after 
hearing  the  neighbors  talk  of  an  evening  with  my  father,  and  spending 
no  small  part  of  the  night  walking  up  and  down,  and  trying  to  make 
out  the  exact  meaning  of  some  of  their,  to  me,  dark  sayings.  I  could 
not  sleep,  though  I  often  tried  to,  when  I  got  on  such  a  hunt  after  an 
idea,  until  I  had  caught  it,  and  when  I  thought  I  had  got  it,  I  was  not 
satisfied  until  I  had  repeated  it  over  and  over,  until  I  had  put  it  in 
language  plain  enough  as  I  thought,  for  any  boy  I  knew  to  compre- 
hend. This  was  a  kind  of  passion  with  me,  and  it  has  since  stuck  by 
me,  for  I  am  never  easy  now,  when  I  am  handling  a  thought,  till  I 
have  bounded  it  North,  and  bounded  it  South,  and  bounded  it  East, 
and  bounded  it  West.  Perhaps  that  accounts  for  the  characteristic 
you  observe  in  my  speeches,  though  I  put  the  things  together  before.' 

"  'Mr.  Lincoln,  I  thank  you  for  this.  It  is  the  most  splendid 
educational  fact  I  ever  happened  upon.  This  is  genius,  with  all  its 
impulsive,  inspiring,  dominating  power  over  the  mind  of  its  possessor, 
developed  by  education  into  talent,  with  its  uniformity,  its  perma- 
nence, and  its  disciplined  strength,  always  ready,  always  available, 
never  capricious — the  highest  possession  of  the  human  intellect.  But 
let  me  ask,  did  you  not  have  a  law  education?  How  did  you  prepare 
for  your  profession?' 

"  '0,  yes.  I  read  law,  as  the  phrase  is;  that  is,  I  became  a  law- 
yer's clerk  in  Springfield,  and  copied  tedious  documents,  and  picked 
up  what  I  could  of  law  in  the  intervals  of  other  work.  But  your  ques- 
tion reminds  me  of  a  bit  of  education  I  had,  which  I  am  bound  in  hon- 
esty to  mention.  I  thought,  at  first,  that  I  understood  its  meaning, 
but  soon  became  satisfied  that  I  did  not.  I  said  to  myself,  'What  do 
I  do  when  I  demonstrate,  more  than  when  I  reason  or  prove?  How 
does  demonstration  differ  from  any  other  proof?'  I  consulted  Web- 
ster's Dictionary.  That  told  of  certain  proof,  "proof  beyond  possi- 
bility of  doubt;"  but  I  could  form  no  idea  of  what  sort  of  proof  that 
was.  I  thought  a  great  many  things  were  proved  beyond  a  possibility 
of  doubt,  without  recourse  to  any  such  extraordinary  process  of  rea- 

15 


soning  as  I  understood  'demonstration'  to  be.  I  consulted  all  the  dic- 
tionaries and  books  of  reference  I  could  find,  but  with  no  better 
results.  You  might  as  well  have  defined  'blue'  to  a  blind  man.  At 
last  I  said,  'Lincoln,  you  can  never  make  a  lawyer  if  you  do  not  under- 
stand what  demonstrate  means.'  And  I  left  my  situation  in  Spring- 
field, went  home  to  my  father's  house,  and  stayed  there  until  I  could 
give  any  propositions  in  the  six  books  of  Euclid  at  sight.  I  then 
found  out  what  'demonstrate'  means,  and  went  back  to  my  law  studies.' 
"  'I  could  not  refrain  from  saying,  in  my  admiration  for  such  a 
development  of  character  and  genius  combined,  'Mr.  Lincoln,  your 
success  is  no  longer  a  marvel.  It  has  been  a  legitimate  result  of  ade- 
quate causes.  You  deserve  it  all,  and  a  great  deal  more.  If  you  will 
permit  me,  I  would  like  to  use  this  fact  publicly.  It  will  be  most 
valuable  in  inciting  our  young  men  to  that  patient,  classical  and  math- 
ematical culture  which  most  minds  absolutely  require.  No  man  can 
talk  well  unless  he  is  able,  first  of  all,  to  define  to  himself  what  he  is 
talking  about.  Euclid,  well  studied,  would  free  the  world  of  half  its 
calamities,  by  banishing  half  the  nonsense  which  now  deludes  and 
curses  it.  I  have  often  thought  that  Euclid  would  be  one  of  the  best 
books  to  put  on  the  catalogue  of  the  Tract  Society,  if  they  could  only 
get  people  to  read  it.     It  would  be  a  means  of  grace.' 

"  'I  think  so,'  said  he,  laughing;  'I  vote  for  Euclid.'  " 
It  is  evident  that  in  some  minor  particulars,  Mr.  Gulliver's  mem- 
ory was  at  fault,  as  for  instance,  where  Lincoln  is  quoted  as  saying  that 
he  "became  a  lawyer's  clerk  in  Springfield."  That  was  what  Mr. 
Gulliver  understood  when  Lincoln  told  him  that  he  began  his  legal 
career  in  the  office  of  an  older  lawyer.  It  is  interesting  also  to  note 
another  minor  error  in  which  Lincoln  is  made  to  say,  that,  in  his  effort 
to  learn  the  meaning  of  the  word  "demonstrate,"  he  "went  home  to 
his  father's  house." 

LTndoubtedly  Lincoln  used  the  expression  "went  home,"  and  Mr. 
Gulliver  supposed  he  meant  that  he  went  to  his  own  father's  house 
at  the  beginning  of  his  legal  career.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  that  was  not 
what  Lincoln  meant.  He  went  back  to  his  own  home  in  Springfield 
after  his  one  term  as  a  member  of  the  House  of  Eepresentatives  in 
Washington.  Then  was  when  he  discovered  a  higher  form  of  proof 
that  the  establishment  of  a  fact  by  a  preponderance  of  evidence.  His 
biographers,  Nicolay  and  Hay,  give  us  the  correct  background  for  the 
Gulliver  interview : 

"It  was  at  this  time,  that  he  gave  notable  proof  of  his  unusual 
powers  of  mental  discipline.  His  wider  knowledge  of  men  and  things, 
acquired  by  contact  with  a  great  world,  had  shown  him  a  certain  lack 

16 


in  himself  of  close  and  sustained  reasoning.  To  remedy  this  defect, 
he  applied  himself,  after  his  return  from  Congress,  to  such  works  on 
logic  and  mathematics  as  he  fancied  to  be  serviceable.  Devoting  him- 
self with  dogged  energy  to  the  task  in  hand,  he  soon  learned  by  heart 
six  books  of  the  propositions  of  Euclid,  and  he  retained  through  life  a 
thorough  knowledge  of  the  principles  they  contained." — (Nicolay  and 
Hay,  i:298-299). 

It  is  to  be  remembered  that  Lincoln  was  at  this  time  forty  years 
old.  He  had  been  four  times  elected  a  member  of  the  Legislature 
and  had  served  a  term  in  Congress. 

We  have  another  and  not  less  remarkable  evidence  of  Lincoln's 
power  of  self-discipline,  his  determination  to  gain  a  post-graduate 
education.  In  1857,  he  was  engaged  in  what  was  probably  his  most 
important  lawsuit,  as  he  then  believed,  and  went  to  Cincinnati  to  try 
the  well  known  Eeaper  Case,  in  which  he  was  associated  with  Edwin 
M.  Stanton.  The  story  is  well  known  how  Stanton  refused  to  permit 
Lincoln  to  plead  and  of  Lincoln's  bitter  disappointment,  but  he  did 
not  sit  down  and  sulk  about  it.  He  determined  to  improve  his  educa- 
tion.    Mr.  Ealph  Emerson,  who  was  his  client,  had  told  the  story : 

"When  the  hearing  was  through,  Mr.  Lincoln  called  me  to  him  as 
we  left  the  courtroom,  and  wanted  to  walk  and  talk.  For  block  after 
block  he  walked  forward,  silent  and  deeply  dejected.  At  last,  turning 
to  me,  he  exclaimed,  'Emerson,  I'm  going  home.'  A  pause,  'I'm  going 
home  to  study  law.' 

"  'Why'  I  exclaimed,  'Mr.  Lincoln,  you  stand  at  the  head  of  the 
bar  in  Illinois.     What  are  you  talking  about!' 

"  'Yes,  yes,'  he  said,  'I  do  occupy  a  good  position  there,  and  I 
think  that  I  can  get  along  with  the  way  things  are  going  there  now. 
But  these  college  trained  men  who  have  devoted  their  whole  lives  to 
study  are  coming  west,  don't  you  see?  They  study  on  a  single  case 
perhaps  for  months,  as  we  never  do.  We  are  apt  to  catch  up  the  thing 
as  it  goes  before  a  jury  and  trust  to  the  inspiration  of  the  moment. 
They  have  got  as  far  as  Ohio  now.     They  will  soon  be  in  Illinois.' 

"Another  long  pause.  Then  stopping  and  turning  to  me,  his 
countenance  suddenly  assumed  that  strong  look  of  determination 
which  we  who  knew  him  best  sometimes  saw  on  his  face,  and  he  ex- 
claimed : 

"  'I'm  going  home  to  study  law!  I'm  as  good  as  any  of  them,  and 
when  they  get  out  to  Illinois,  I  will  be  ready  for  them!' 

"He  finished  and  at  once  became  very  cheerful,  as  though  he  now 
saw  a  clear  path  before  him." 

Having  now  considered  Lincoln's  schooling,  both  that  which  he 

17 


got  and  that  which  he  failed  to  secure,  what  are  we  to  say  about  his 
education  ? 

Abraham  Lincoln,  when  he  began  his  public  career,  was  able  to 
write  a  neat  and  legible  hand.  He  was  able  to  think  clearly  and  to 
state  his  opinions  in  well-chosen  words.  I  wonder  how  many  students 
of  Illinois  College  write  as  good  a  hand  as  Lincoln?  How  many  have 
as  direct  and  clear  and  correct  a  style?  Is  the  English  language 
spoken  upon  the  campus  the  English  learned  from  the  English 
Department? 

Lincoln  learned  the  value  of  words.  It  was  his  custom  when 
reading  a  book  to  pronounce  each  word  as  he  read  it.  This  may  have 
been  in  part  an  inheritance  from  his  blab-school  days,  but  it  was  also 
a  process  of  verbal  evaluation.  When  he  was  writing,  he  wrote  slowly, 
pronouncing  each  word  as  he  wrote  it.  He  weighed  it  as  he  uttered 
and  wrote  it.  His  knowledge  of  poetry  came  largely  through  his  ear 
for  words.  At  New  Salem,  with  its  remarkable  variety  of  people,  he 
became  acquainted  with  Jack  Kelso,  a  sort  of  vagrant  elocutionist, 
who  recited  poetry  to  Lincoln  and  the  other  young  men.  The  sound 
of  poetry  rather  than  the  sight  of  poetry  in  print  caused  Lincoln  to 
love  poetry.  He  learned  to  love  Shakespeare,  Byron  and  Burns  from 
hearing  their  lines  recited.  Then  he  learned  to  love  the  reading  of 
them. 

Do  not  undervalue  words.  Learn  the  use  and  value  of  words. 
Cultivate  an  adequate  vocabulary,  and  use  words  with  precision  and 
discrimination.  Do  not  cheapen  your  utterance  by  words  ill-chosen 
or  with  slovenly  pronunciation.  Had  Lincoln  been  everything  else 
that  he  was,  and  lacked  eloquence  and  the  power  of  lucid  expression, 
he  never  could  have  risen  to  the  position  which  he  held. 

We  live  in  a  period  in  which  words  are  undervalued.  One  of  the 
perils  of  the  moving-picture  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  movies  gather 
groups  of  people  in  badly  ventilated  rooms,  where,  with  considerable 
eye-strain,  they  are  subject  to  the  play  of  powerful  emotions  without 
words.  If  we  train  up  a  generation  whose  power  of  emotion  is  disso- 
ciated from  the  use  of  words,  we  shall  have  a  generation  incapable  of 
sustained  thought. 

Lincoln  at  Gettysburg  said : 

"The  world  will  little  note  nor  long  remember  what  we  say  here, 
but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here." 

18 


He  was  mistaken.  Memorable  as  were  the  deeds  performed  at 
Gettysburg,  they  are  less  nearly  imperishable  than  his  words.  The 
Gettysburg  address  will  be  printed  and  recited  for  a  thousand  years 
after  it  shall  have  become  necessary  to  attach  foot-notes  telling 
whether  the  battle  of  that  name  occurred  in  New  England  during  the 
American  Revolution  or  in  Flanders  during  the  World  War,  or  in 
some  other  notable  conflict  not  only  of  armies  but  of  ideals.  "The 
words  that  I  speak  unto  you,"  said  the  Lord  Jesus,  "they  are  Spirit, 
and  they  are  life.  Heaven  and  earth  shall  pass  away,  but  my  words 
shall  not  pass  away." 

Young  men,  do  not  be  afraid  of  eloquence.  It  is  the  finest  of  the 
fine  arts.  You  have  no  brush  or  pallette  or  canvas,  no  chisel  or  mallet 
or  block  of  marble,  no  instrument  of  music,  nothing  but  the  human 
voice  and  the  human  ear,  and  the  soul  of  the  orator  in  contact  with 
the  soul  of  his  audience.  Yet  you  can  impart  knowledge,  awaken 
emotion,  paint  pictures  upon  the  walls  of  memory,  and  influence  life 
choices.  There  is  very  little  eloquence  left  at  the  bar  or  on  the  stump, 
but  the  pulpit  remains  the  throne  of  eloquence.  If  you  have  charac- 
ter, ability,  power  in  the  use  of  words,  and  a  passionate  love  of  service, 
aspire  to  be  preachers  of  the  Gospel.  There  is  no  nobler  calling,  no 
more  royal  throne  of  power  among  men. 

So  I  rate  high  among  the  educational  attainments  of  Lincoln  his 
power  to  use  words  in  written  and  oral  discourses,  and  I  commend  to 
you  a  thoughtful  study  of  the  power  of  correct  and  accurate  speech. 

But  education  is  not  complete  without  its  moral  quality.  Abra- 
ham Lincoln's  education  included  a  sense  of  responsibility  to  God,  and 
a  power  to  influence  the  lives  of  men. 

Added  to  all  the  rest,  Abraham  Lincoln  had  a  training  of  sym- 
pathy and  a  discipline  of  conscience  and  a  strengthening  of  will  which 
made  him  quick  to  discern  a  duty,  and  able  to  act  with  gentleness, 
discrimination,  decision  and  firmness. 

If  education  be  defined  as  a  wide  knowledge  of  things  contained 
in  books,  Abraham  Lincoln  had  little  of  it.  He  called  himself  a 
"mast-fed"  lawyer,  one  who  had  gotten  his  scant  fattening  from  what 
he  could  root  out  in  the  woods,  instead  of  what  was  thrown  to  him  in 
the  pen.  Growing  up  where,  as  he  said,  there  was  "absolutely  nothing 
to  inspire  one  with  ambition  to  secure  an  education,"  he  learned  what 
the  schools  could  teach  him,  and  he  continued  to  learn.  It  is  well  for 
us  in  our  childhood  to  hear  what  good  use  Lincoln  made  of  his  few 

19 


books  in  youth.  It  will  do  us  good  if  we  remember  that  he  mastered 
Euclid  at  forty,  and  went  home  to  study  law  at  fifty. 

If  education  be  a  discipline  of  mind  and  character  which  fits  a 
man  to  do  well  his  appointed  work  in  the  world,  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  a  man  of  liberal  education. 

Abraham  Lincoln  derived  an  important  part  of  his  education 
from  books.  If  in  his  boyhood  he  had  been  deprived  of  the  small  but 
excellent  library  which  he  found  available  for  his  instruction,  it  is 
impossible  to  believe  that  he  could  ever  have  attained  to  greatness. 
But  books,  after  all,  furnished  the  minor  portion  of  his  equipment  for 
life.  Lincoln  knew  a  few  books,  and  those  few  he  knew  well;  but 
much  broader  and  more  comprehensive  was  his  knowledge  of  men. 

It  might  be  said  of  him  as  it  was  said  of  Jesus,  if  not  in  the  same 
degree  at  least  in  the  same  sense,  that  "He  needed  not  that  any  should 
tell  him  what  was  in  man,  for  He  knew  men."  Jesus  knew  the  heart 
of  men  perfectly;  and  Lincoln,  to  an  unusual  degree,  knew  what  was 
in  men.  This  is  the  real  test  of  an  education,  its  value  as  an  element 
of  power  among  men.  Books  are  of  value,  but  there  never  was  a  book 
as  great  as  the  man  who  made  it.  Knowledge  derived  from  books  is 
to  be  highly  esteemed,  but  the  measure  of  its  value  is  its  contribution 
to  life.  Lincoln  did  not  have  to  travel  far  to  know  men;  there  were 
men  of  almost  as  many  kinds  in  New  Salem  as  there  were  in  Spring- 
field or  New  York  City.  Lincoln  knew  them,  not  simply  in  the  sense 
of  knowing  their  names  and  being  on  speaking  terms  with  them,  but 
in  the  sense  of  understanding  them  and  believing  in  them.  His  view 
of  human  nature  was  not  impractically  high;  he  knew  the  frailty  of 
humanity,  and  the  power  of  motive;  but  he  also  knew  that  the  average 
man  has  more  good  about  him  than  bad.  He  believed  in  the  average 
man.  It  was  his  conviction  that  the  destinies  of  the  Republic  were 
safer  with  the  great  body  of  the  people  than  with  political  leaders 
because  the  average  man's  judgment  is  sound  and  his  conscience  true. 
He  knew  that  a  demagogue  might  fool  all  the  people  some  of  the  time, 
and  some  of  the  people  all  the  time,  but  he  also  believed  that  they 
could  not  fool  all  the  people  all  the  time.  He  had  knowledge  of 
humanity,  and  because  he  had  knowledge  he  had  also  faith.  He 
knew  men,  and  he  believed  in  men. 

The  power  of  great  men  to  inspire  us  depends  largely  upon  the 
degree  to  which  we  feel  ourselves  possessed  of  interests  common  to 
themselves  and  us.     There  is  little  help  for  us  in  the  example  of  a  man 

20 


elevated  upon  so  high  a  pedestal  that  his  feet  are  hopelessly  out  of 
touch  with  the  ground  on  which  we  must  stand.  Lincoln  stands  with 
his  feet  upon  our  common  soil.  He  helps  us  because  we  have  so  much 
in  common  with  him.  You  students  of  Illinois  College  have  some 
special  right  to  a  feeling  of  comradeship  with  him.  It  requires  very 
little  stretch  of  the  imagination  to  make  him  your  fellow-student. 
Yours  also  is  the  privilege  of  using  this  education,  as  he  so  nobly 
employed  his,  in  the  service  of  God  and  your  country. 


2L 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS  URBANA 

973.7L63GB28E  C001 

THE  EDUCATION  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.  JACKSO 


3  0112  031817452 


